YCN Talk @ LCA

YCN visited out studio this morning to discuss themselves and to give us more of an insight into what they do and who they are. This was especially useful considering that I think me along with others only knew of YCN through their Student Awards which some of us chose to take on this year. They describe themselves as a curated creative network that do a range of things such as work alongside big brands but also source talent to help work with these brands and other clients that may need a specific kind of designer(s). Something I thought was useful that they do is hold events on things that interest us all, that being things such as how to be a confident speaker, as I think at this stage something I struggle with is speaking in front of lots of people.

Something I mentioned before was the YCN Student Awards which in some ways is similar to D&AD's student awards except with different clients which is useful because especially during the Responsive Module of this year, it gives us more of a range of briefs to choose from. Aside from giving an overview of the awards and what they typically expect from it, they showed examples of some work from previous years. But what I found helpful was that they pointed out things that aren't typically on the brief but that can be a nice addition to the work submitted. This was giving context to the work itself, one person who won in a previous year gave his design decisions for why he chose an American accent for the people within an animation even though it was a purely British company. Thinking outside the box and creating work that the individual feels is appropriate to the brief is something they suggested also, rather than sticking so strictly to the brief, having their work in extra and possibly more appropriate formats was also advised.

Aside from the content of the presentation, the way the presentation was structured itself and the way the speaker approached it was something I picked up on as being something I should incorporate into my talks and get into the habit of doing. The slides contained little to no information meaning it was purely visual, keeping me engaged whilst he spoke along side it. Also the slides gave a sneak peak as to what he was going to discuss which was helpful. I think my confidence in speaking is something I definitely need to improve on, considering that they way he spoke was confident and clear, I feel this definitely helped me to stay engaged with what he was saying.